


More than blood

by Mirdala



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Background Relationships, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Jesse and Fareeha are siblings by choice, Justice Siblings, M/M, McHanzo - Freeform, Pharmercy, loss of a parent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-27 19:41:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17773043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mirdala/pseuds/Mirdala
Summary: The loss of a parent is never easy. Doesn't matter if blood is shared.





	More than blood

Weeks fly by faster than Jesse expects. When Reyes shows up in his safehouse in Poland on the outskirts of where the recent Overwatch “rescue” happened, it finally dawns on him it’d been months. Months with no progress. No leads. No trace of Captain Amari. He wasn’t going to give up. Not like Morrison. He wouldn’t leave her behind. He wouldn’t.

 “I need a few more weeks.” Jesse’s tone isn’t asking while he sifts through some honest to gods papers, not looking up at Reyes, at his commander. When he doesn’t get a response he moves to justification, eyes fixed on a holomap of the area. Waypoint and icons litter the map. His work . “I found the stock of her rifle here. There ain’t a body. A blood splatter doesn’t mean shit unless there’s a body. She’s alive. I know it. I'll—“

 “No.”

 Jesse breezes past Reyes’ response. Reyes’ doesn’t mean it. He wouldn't say to stop. He wouldn’t, he just wants results. So does Jesse. And come hell or high water, he’s going to deliver. He promised.

“Fine, just a week then.” He pulls up a dossier of information he’s collected on the good Doctor Lee. “There’s this doctor I want to look into again. They were evasive and the hospital records don’t—“

“No. You’re done here.” Reyes steps up to Jesse, lowering the tablet in his hands with a finger. “Orca is pulling chocks in two hours.” 

“What? Alright. Have a good flight.” Like Reyes’ appearance, the hand on his shoulder, the look on Reyes’ face finally registers in his mind the why and the what of the situation.

He grits his teeth,“I ain’t done.”

“The UN has taken the evidence you’ve found so far and as deemed that the Jane Doe you caught wind of is sufficient—“ Reyes’ voice is stiff. The kind of stiff when he has to spout some bullshit he fought tooth and nail against and lost.This isn’t his choice and he hates it. Jesse knows that but he’s still going to put a fight. He made a promise.

“It ain’t her!” Jesse bellows.

“It’s already official.” The words are a hollow ringing in Jesse’s ears, he ignores.

“I am not leaving her! Not like Morrison did!”

“Fareeha and Sam haven’t been notified yet.” Reyes doesn’t acknowledge his words. Jesse lays his final card on the table.

“Please...don’t make me leave her. Give me a week. Gabe, please.”He pleads, quietly. He thinks it works when Gabe sighs heavily, pulls his beanie off and runs a hand down his face.

Gabe wraps him up in his arms, holding him tight and Jesse is relieved. He got through. Gabe will give him more time. He’ll find her. He’ll bring her home. To her family. Gabe pushes him away arms outstretched hands still on his shoulders.

“I thought you would want to be the one to tell Fareeha.”

 

* * *

  
Fareeha knows when Jesse is near because her ridiculous brother-by-choice always walks with a swagger, a saunter, a deliberate slowness punctuated by the jingle of spurs and his boot heel driving into the ground. She can always hear him before she sees him. Her little sister senses go to max because if she’s quick enough she can usually enact their tradition of throwing whatever is at hand (within reason) in the other’s direction, a never ending game of think-fast.

This time around though, she doesn’t reach for the pillow on the couch or the snack bar on the table to chuck at his face. Her hands remain clenched fists instead. The slowness of Jesse’s steps fills her with a heavy cold dread. His slowness is all wrong. His heel doesn’t clip into the ground but drags. With each step her shoulders tense tighter and tighter.

A final step sets him in front of her. He stands in silence. A rarity. She’s glad he’s the one to tell her. He won’t feed her some platitudes. He’d have turned the world upside down before he stood here in front her with a sickenly familiar rifle stock in his hand. Dhe won’t make him say the words. She gives him that kindness, spares him that much, she’s a good sister.

“You tried. You did everything you could. I’ve known since I was a kid that— that this might happen. It comes with—” Fareeha shakes her head and clears her throat, “it comes with the job. Even with my dad. It—”

Fareeha knew what might happen when those she’s known her whole life leave on a transport smiling, waving goodbye early in the morning or waking up to a brief goodbye message waiting for her.

_Be back soon, habibatan._

_Punk, gotta jet. Stay out of my food._

_Left you a present since I’m the best uncle you have._

She knew one day they wouldn’t come back and under their name there’d be a red byline.

Missing in action.

Killed in action.

Then words would be stated to honor their memory, while a flag was folded.

Sacrificed everything for the greater good.

Fought valiantly.

Saved so many lives with their own.

She’d prepared as much as anyone could for a moment like this. Practiced steeling herself. Imagined hearing the words telling her family was smaller. She understood it even more when she joined the army. Every mission could be her last. She knows the worry extents to her now.

But after so many years. After so many close calls and near misses, she’d forgotten those closest to her heart weren’t special. She’d seen so many be handed a folded flag over the years. Stood and listened to the shots from a firing squad in dress uniforms as a simple melody from a trumpet filled the air. Sat with others drinking to the memory of the fallen.

She’d forgotten they weren’t invincible. They weren’t untouchable. She lived steeped in a false comfort of believing they were the best of the best, nothing could ever take them from her.

Nothing could...

Fareeha’s bearing breaks bit by bit. Jesse watches his sister’s face crumple. His terrible bratty wonderful sister. She blinks rapidly and juts her chin out to keep the tears from falling. Jaw clenched tight as a vice. She takes a few breaths through her nose to steady herself. The tears run tracks down her face. She’s trying so hard.

Jesse’s own chin quivers and shakes. He’s lost the ability to hold back tears on the flight to the watchpoint. His shoulders shake against his will, breaths short and sharp. The rifle stock in his hand creaks against his grip. Jesse is tired of keeping it together.

The siblings reach out to each other at the same time. Fareeha wraps an arm up and cradles the back of Jesse’s head in her hand as he dips down to rest his forehead on her shoulder. She mirrors him Jesse swings his arm around her back and embraces her tightly.

That was their rule. Since forever. No fronts, no pretending. No holding back when shit was too much. Free reign to cry and yell or just be. No judgement. Ever.

They sob in their embrace. They wail against one another, letting the world hear their broken hearts. Their bleeding grief is ugly with drool and tears splattering the ground at their feet. They cling to each other, knuckles white bodies quaking with cries.

A mother’s children mourn.

 

* * *

 

“I can’t stay here.” They are sitting side by side, shoulders touching pressing their weight into the other.

“You aren’t going to get an argument out of me,” Fareeha snakes her hand around his to twine their fingers together, “I don’t think I can stand losing you too.”

“Shit, Reeha, had a whole spiel planned.” Fareeha tightens her hold on his hand because that was the weakest attempt at lightening the mood she has ever seen and loves that he tried anyway.

“She won’t think,” he sifts tensing, “I am being a coward?”

“Never. She’d say you’re strong. She always wished she had the strength to let things go. To move on.”

“Still going to join Overwatch when you get out of the army?”  Jesse clamps his free hand on top of hers, sandwiched between his.

“It’s my turn Jess.” Jesse’s eyes drop heavy with sadness.

“You ain’t gotta.” Fareeha braces herself for the same old argument she’s heard over and over again. “Ain’t what she wanted for you.”

“I know but someone has too.”

Jesse heaves a sigh. “Guess I’m staying then.”

“No.” Fareeha knocks into his shoulder. “You’ve done your share.”

“I can’t lose you too.” Jesse’s voice cracking almost breaks Fareeha’s resolve.

“You won’t.”

 

* * *

 

The piece of paper is between them on the table, elegant script written across the surface. Jesse has his head resting in his hands, elbows digging into his knees, one metal and one flesh and bone. Fareeha is taking a swig from a bottle, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. The bottle thunks on the table, the edges of the letter lift just a bit at the displaced air. They have a strict policy of face to face meetings. They are few and far between, what with Jesse’s bounty and Fareeha now with Helix.  

“I want it to be real.” Her eyes have dark shadows under them. She pushes the bottle across the table, catching the letter by a corner. It lazily half spins on the table.

For having been out of the envelope for less than a month, the letter is worn. Handled by hands over and over. Fingers that smooth over the fibers of the paper, soften it. The words are still easy to read. Crisp and clear. Fareeha had read it aloud to Jesse. She needed to hear it. She needed to  hear that maybe this was her mother’s words. Her voice.

So many missions had gone to shit. So many had the plug pulled over his years with Blackwatch, but his mission to find Ana in Poland still haunts him. The words on the letter spear straight into the guilt he buried years ago. He went back after he left Blackwatch. It hadn’t been too long, he still had a lead. It was cold but still there. He found nothing. He never told Fareeha he went back.  

Jesse eyes the the letter, he had a similar one. It’s lost, crumpled and tossed aside in a drunken rage that ended in sorrow. He’ll never forgive himself. For the burial he could never give her. He’d live with the guilt of his failure tenfold if it meant she was alive.  

The letter rests open to them but the two of them were too cautious. Too wary. They looked at the letter with skepticism so heavy it couldn’t be shaked.

Better to play it safe.

Jesse lifts his head, eyes bloodshot and rimmed with redness. He takes the bottle and drinks deeply.

“So do I.”

 

* * *

 

The call to Egypt was strange. Fareeha and Jesse had shared a knowing glance when Winston relayed the information. Hanzo asked him about it later in their room. Angela already knew and just offered Fareeha a comforting hand. Jesse and Fareeha absconded after dinner.

“Could be a trap.”

“Most likely is.”

“Gloves are off if it is. If some piece of shit is using--” She can’t say it, doesn’t need to, Jesse knows because he holds the exact same sentiment. They are going to grind them into dust for using their mother’s memory to get to them.

The flight the next day is tense. The team is on edge when the siblings are quiet and stick to each. They only part when they hit the dirt.

Jesse moves around a corner and comes face to face with Talon squad. He and Hanzo clear them out but Jesse gets caught out.

Jesse freezes in place as Ana Amari hops down from some ledge he can’t see, uses her momentum to spin on her heel and fire at the bruiser charging at him. The shot stops the tank of a man, putting him down instantly.

Hanzo has a hand on his arm to yank him out of the bruiser's path but he doesn’t budge. He’s rooted to the spot.

“Jesse, what is it?” His voice is clipped and it barely breaks into Jesse’s conscious.

“I left her.”

The impact of the shot to Jesse’s chest doesn’t even compare to the gut punch he just took from seeing...her. He keeps his eyes on her even as he’s slammed backward. She’s so much older. Her hair is white. Hanzo is in his peripheral drawing back an arrow and sending it down range at a sniper none of them caught. He calls Jesse’s name, calls over the comm link but the sounds don’t sink into Jesse’s mind, all he hears in his mind is his own voice.

_I left her._

Hanzo is holding him but a different face hovers over his. A shrewd eye glints at him.

“Get up, abnay. This isn’t over.” She tucks bit of his hair back and resettles his hat on his head.

“Aye, Captain.”

 

Fareeha lands hard and sprints, boosters allowing her to cover more ground with each stride. It’s just like so many other times when she was younger. Running up the rampway with whoever escorted her out to greet the incoming transport behind her, left in her the dust. She would leap into arms that would always catch her. The memory pushes her legs forward. She sees them standing by the Orca. The rest of the team is loading up, the mission complete. Jesse wrapping another in his arms. Against all the years of training, the instilled discipline, she tosses her helmet to the side and drops her rocket launcher.

This isn’t a dream, she reminds herself.

Mama.

She’s alive.

Jesse found her.

The tears in her eyes blur everything. She focuses on Jesse’s red serape. She focuses on the smaller form with white and blue at it’s head, held in the loop of his arms. She trips over her feet, her boosters keeping her up. Jesse blindly reaches out an arm to pull her in. She slams into them, arms thrown wide to gather them to her. She buries her face into them. Her brother. Her mother.

She’s home.

She’s finally home.

Mother, daughter, and son stand uncaring of the eyes on them, of the rest of world.

They hold each other.

Reunited at last.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [ Salt ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaltCore) put an idea in my brain, this was the only way to get it out.


End file.
